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Sea Ice Swirls in the Labrador Sea

NASA Earth Observatory

May 16, 2017
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2017-05-13 00:00:00
May 13, 2017

With the onset of spring and warmer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, sea ice is thinning and breaking up along Canada’s Labrador coast. On May 13, 2017, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image of sea ice swirling in the Labrador Sea. A combination of winds and currents steered the ice into the interlocking swirls.

  1. Further Reading

  2. NASA Earth Observatory (2016, September 16) Sea ice.
  3. NASA Earth Observatory (2017) Arctic Sea Ice.

References & Resources

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response. Caption by Adam Voiland.

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